On the Genealogy and Legitimacy of the Politically Liberal Secular Polity: Bockenforde and the Asadians

Abstract

My article compares and contrasts two critical approaches to the politically liberal, politically secular modern state: the historicist approach of Bockenforde and the Foucault inspired post-colonial, genealogical approach of theorists such as Asad, Cavanaugh, Danchin, Hurd, and Mahmood. For Bockenforde, political liberalism and political secularism are freedom-guaranteeing achievements that every religion must come to terms with. Nevertheless he saw liberal political secularism as self-eviscerating because without religious support, the motivations and solidarity needed by the modern state won’t be forthcoming. To the post-secular, post-colonial genealogists, liberalism and political secularism are modes of governmentality that restrict freedom, create and discriminate against religious minorities and generate grave conflict within and across borders. They locate the internal paradox of liberal political secularism in its claim to be separate from and neutral towards religion(s), while assuming the prerogative to intrusively regulate and define religion, and to draw the boundaries between the religious and the political. While they differ in their diagnoses and commitments, the two approaches a. have much to learn from each other and b. share some central, and in my view, flawed political theological assumptions. I make these assumptions explicit, challenge the explicit and covert political theology informing them, and present alternative that defends the legitimacy, basic principles, and core achievements of liberal, democratic (and social-democratic) constitutionalism and political secularism.